The ANC has complied with the Constitutional Court ruling and handed over records of its national cadre deployment committee to the DA.
The official opposition will now study the records to ascertain whether the ANC has complied with the order in full, which directed it to hand over complete meeting minutes, email correspondence, WhatsApp conversations, CVs and all other relevant documentation dating back to January 2013.
The DA’s shadow minister for public service and administration, Leon Schreiber, announced on Monday that the ANC has “bended the knee and surrendered” its cadre deployment records to his party.
“After more than three years of determined ‘lawfare’ activism by the DA, we have today succeeded in our quest to force the ANC to hand over cadre deployment records dating back to January 2013, when President Cyril Ramaphosa became chair of the deployment committee that helped to facilitate state capture.
“This victory for transparency and the rule of law comes after the ANC was forced to bend the knee before the DA in court, where we won three successive battles, with cost orders, extending all the way to Constitutional Court,” said Schreiber.
“If the ANC has erased and manipulated parts of the information, or sought to otherwise undermine the Constitutional Court’s order, the DA will launch further legal action to hold ANC leaders personally accountable.
“As soon as we have processed the voluminous documentation, the DA will fulfil our long-standing undertaking to make public the ANC’s dirty cadre secrets for every South African to see,” he said.
Schreiber described the handover as an important landmark in the DA’s journey to abolishing cadre deployment corruption.
This is because these records show how the ANC interferes in appointments to public positions. Because these decisions affect public positions and members of the public themselves, the public has a right to know on what basis these appointments were made.
— Leon Schreiber, DA shadow minister for public service and administration
He said ANC cadre deployment laid the foundation for state capture, for systemic corruption and for the service delivery collapse that caused load-shedding, water-shedding and the accelerating failure of the state.
Earlier on Monday, the ANC announced it would comply with the ConCourt ruling and hand over the records in its possession.
It warned that it could not find some of the committee’s minutes. It had informed the Zondo commission in June 2021 that it had searched for the committee’s minutes for the period December 2012 to December 2017, and no minutes of the meetings for that period could be found.
The party warned the DA to handle the information with care, taking into account the provision of the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia) which guarantees the protection of personal information of individuals.
The DA has previously said it needed access to the ANC’s deployment committee records to enrich its anti-cadre deployment draft bill.
Last October, Schreiber said it was important for the public to see the ANC’s deployment committee records because they were likely to reveal how the governing party secured jobs for “loyal cadres”, some of whom had proved “corrupt and incompetent”.
“This is because these records show how the ANC interferes in appointments to public positions. Because these decisions affect public positions and members of the public themselves, the public has a right to know on what basis these appointments were made.
“Ensuring transparency concerning these cadre deployment records will enable the public to see on what basis corrupt and incompetent officials are appointed. They will show that it is the ANC — and no-one else — that is directly responsible for corruption and failing service delivery through its illegal interference in administrative appointments.
“Exposing this information will also empower affected parties to challenge appointments [which] the ANC illegally interfered in to ensure that only loyal cadres get access to jobs,” Schreiber said at the time.
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